The present invention relates, in general, to a flexible coupling for rotating shafts, and more particularly to a flexible coupling for rotating shafts and which is capable of transmitting a great amount of torque between rotating shafts, even when they are placed in mutual misalignment.
Mutual misalignment is herein desired as involving: (1) axial misalignment, (2) angular misalignment and (3) displacement between the drive shaft and the driven shaft.
The prior art flexible couplings for rotating shafts include rubber or metal springs used as an elastic body or gears having sliding contact between meshing teeth faces. However, the former type of flexible coupling utilizing an elastic body such as rubber, can transmit torque of only a comparatively small amount for the size of the coupling, and fails to handle torque of a great amount. The latter type of the flexible coupling transmits torque by teeth faces of gears being in sliding contact, thus causing wear or spalling of such faces, thereby resulting in such serious damage as to necessitate replacement of the gears after a comparatively short time. In spite of this disadvantage, this kind of flexible coupling is capable of transmitting a great amount of torque for its very small size, so that it is popularly used in installation such as rolling mills installed in steel plants or similar plants. Though performance is lowered by the wear unavoidably caused as mentioned above, this gear coupling is the only one that is usable for such installation, and hence there is no alternative but to use it.